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Abstract

This presentation will consider the opportunities and challenges to public transport arising out of increasing availability of open data and location-based ICT services in cities. Such initiatives have the potential to foster a data-driven approach to planning and service delivery. Recent programmes relating to data and technology in transit systems were implemented against a backdrop of changing societal preferences (for example, regarding active travel and ubiquitous ICT use), economic circumstances (for example, job losses, reductions in disposable income or ability to obtain financial credit resulting from the economic recession) and an increasingly strong role played by ICT entrepreneurs providing digital city services (emerging ICT-focussed companies, developers and civic hackers). Using a combination of statistical modelling and machine learning for knowledge discovery, these topics and their interconnections will be discussed by considering the case of real-time bus arrival systems and their spatio-temporal effects on ridership. Technical and institutional challenges to delivering planning and operational solutions derived from data-driven approaches will be discussed.

Speaker

Vonu is a Professor of Urban Studies and Affiliated Professor of the School of Engineering in the University of Glasgow. She is the Director of the UK ESRC Urban Big Data Centre, a consortium of 7 UK and US universities, and the Halcrow Chair of Transport in Glasgow. Vonu was previously Professor, Department of Urban Planning and Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research focuses on the connections among transportation, society and technology for sustainable and socially-just mobility and on urban informatics utilising heterogeneous data sources for knowledge discovery in cities. She is the author of the recently published book Transportation and Information: Trends in Technology and Policy.

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